Berseem or Egyptian clover (Trifolium alexandrinum L.) is popularly Known as the king of fodder crops for irrigated condition of Northern India because It is available for 6-7 month from November to May, give 4 to 6 cuts during winter, spring and early summer seasons and provides nutrition, succulent and palatable forage, milch animals yielding up to litres of milk can be maintained with a little supplement of concentrate mixture. The green forage can also be converted in to excellent hay and utilized for enrichment of poor quality roughages like kadbis and straw. Besides, Berseem has got a soil building characteristics and improves the physical, Chemical and biological properties of the soil resulting in better growth and yield of crops in rotation. Thus, the crop is very important from the view point of conservation framing and important and imparts sustainability to soil productivity and crop production system as a whole.

Climatic Requirements

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Berseem is adapted to cool and moderately cold climate. Such conditions prevail during winter and spring seasons in north India which is considered as favourable and productive zone for this crop. The optimum temperature at the time of sowing berseem is 250C. For Iuxuriant vegetative growth temperature range of 250C to 27oC has been found ideal. Uniformly high temperature in south Indian conditions limits the cultivation of berseem.

Soil Conditions

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Well drained clay to clay loam soils rich in humus, calcium and phosphorus are suitable for good crop of berseem. However, it can be grown on sandy loam soil but requires frequent irrigations. Comparatively heavy textured soils considered better due to greater water retaining capacity and congenial edaphic environments for crop persistency.

Cropping system

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Berseem finds its place in different cropping systems in the following ways:

In sequential cropping systems with annual grain crops.

In overlapping cropping systems with perennial grasses.

In parallel cropping system with rabi grain crops

The first two cases imply to intensive forage production systems in milkshed areas to meet the forage requirement round the year. These systems are adopted on specialized dairy farms to harvest green nutritious forage with twin objectives of:

Stabilizing milk production over the periods

Reducing the concentrate mixture on animal ration

Economizing on use of fertilizer nitrogen in cropping systems

The third system may be adopted by small farmers who intend to produce food and forage concurrently from the limited land area. In this system two approaches could be applied:

Association cropping in space and time

Grain and forage cropping in proportionate area

However, berseem in intensive forge cropping system offers the following advantage:

Growing of berseem ensures effective utilization of land during dormant phase of perennial grass component.

Combination cropping of berseem and grasses helps in balanced utilization of plant nutrients from different soil depths.

Berseem provides nitrogen nutrition to companion grasses on one hand and cowpea is grown on residual phosphate fertility of berseem on the other. Thus there is considerable saving of fertilizer nutrients.

Berseem in winter acts as live mulch and protects the grass tussocks from damage by prom age by providing moist soil conditions.

The system provides opportunities for rational use of water as extra irrigation are not required for the establishment of grass in standing berseem crop.

There is almost continuous flow of green forage throughout the year from the same piece of land which is important for farmers with small size of holding.

Field preparation

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Land preparation:

The land should be perfectly leveled to obtain even distribution of irrigation water and to avoid water stagnation Berseem can be grown in saline sodic soils if salt concentration is not allowed to accumulate above certain critical level through field flooding and leaching to provide optimum conditions for seed germination and crop establishment. Once established, the crop can tolerate fair amount of salt concentration. Moreover, rice- berseem rotation is recommended to reclaim such soils as these crops require frequent and heavy irrigations which cause considerable leaching of salts from root zone.

Seed & Sowing

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Seed cleaning:

Usually (Chicorium intybus) is found admixed with berseem seed. Since the size of chicory seed resembles with berseem seed; it becomes difficult to separate them by ordinary methods.

However, the seed of berseem is oval while the seed of is conical. To remove chicory seeds, 10% common salt solution is used. The chicory seeds being lighter in weight then berseem seed float on the surface while berseem seeds settle down at the bottom of container. In this way chicory seeds may be drained off and berseem seed collected.

Seed inoculation:

Being a leguminous crop, berseem enriches the soil with sizeable quantities of nitrogen through symbiotic nitrogen fixation with the help of Rhizobium bacteria .Therefore, berseem seed should be inoculated with culture of Rhizobium trifollii to enhance the process of biological nitrogen fixation in root nodules especially in soils where berseem is being grown for the first time

Seed rate:

Under normal condition, the optimum seed rate of berseem has been found to be 25 kg/ha. When the sowing is taken up earlier than the appropriate time, the quantity of seed used is increased by 15to20%to compensate the loss of seedling mortality occurring due to prevailing high atmospheric temperature.

Sowing time:

Sowing time is an important factor governing germination, seedling survival, number of cuts and herbage production. Berseem should be sown when the temperature is in the range of 25-27oC. Thus, the optimum sowing time of berseem in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh (the bowl cultivation) is the entire month of October. In Bengal and Gujarat sowing is taken up only in the month of November. Sowing can continue upto first week of December in eastern region. Delayed sowing results in loss or one of two cuttings. Timely sowing extends the period of forage availability and thereby increases the total yield.

Sowing method:

The seed bed for berseem sowing is prepared by filling the water to a depth of 4-5cm, raking the soil and creating the muddy condition by light puddling (mechanical manipulation of soil at high moisture content). Then the over night soaked seeds are broadcast in standing muddy water in crosswise directions to obtain uniform seed distribution. The sowing should be done towards the evening or during non windy periods of the day.

Nursery Preparation

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Seed bed preparation:

The land should be opened with soil inversion plough followed by 2or 3 operations by desi plough/cultivator. The preparation of good seed bed is an essential component of cultivation practices to obtain desired level of tilth. Fine seed bed is required especially when berseem is to be grown as seed crop in rows without pudling to facilitate weed removal and rouging for quality seed production. When the crop is to be sown in puddle beds thorough cultivation is not required, only cross harrowing /ploughing are needed to remove established weeds, stubbles of the previous crop and to open the soil for leveling by planking.

Nutrient management

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Fertilizer schedule

In irrigated farming, fertilizer use is the most important factor influencing growth and productivity of the crops. Since berseem is a leguminous crop, it needs less nitrogen from fertilizer sources, because, its root nodules contain Rhizobium trifolii bacteria which fix atmospheric nitrogen for plant use. Therefore, fertilizer nitrogen is required only for establishment prior to the formation of root nodules. Experimental evidences have proved that 20kg N/ha at sowing is the optimum dose. When the crop is raised on poor soils without inoculums, top dressing of 10 kg N/ha is done after each cut in addition to 30 kg N/ha basal dose to encourage good regeneration, quick growth and high yield.

In general the responses to applied phosphorus vary widely with available soil phosphorus, soil pH, phosphate sources, application method, water supply and crop duration. The placement of P in the vicinity of root zone is desirable to reduce its fixation and to increase availability to young seedling. Placement of P has been found superior to broadcast in terms of forage yield and P uptake. In general, the crop responds significantly upto 80-90 kg P2O5/ha. As the requirement of P is especially critical at initial crop stage, basal application proved better than top dressing. The potassium requirement of berseem has been found to be 30 to 40 kg K2O/ha in low potassium soils.

Water management

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Water requirements

Berseem requires huge quantities of water for producing high succulent biomass. For every kilogram of plant dry matter produced as much as 500 kilograms of more or water may be necessary in a dry climate. Therefore, adequate and timely water supply is one the basic inputs for obtaining potential crop yield which necessitates precise knowledge of irrigation techniques and approaches in berseem crop. On the basis of irrigation investigation at IGFRI, Jhansi over the years emerged the following useful information on irrigation management of berseem:

Parameter

Information

Optimum soil moisture regime in top 45 cm soil depth

75% available soil moisture (ASM)

2.

Irrigation interval

10-12 days

3.

Number of irrigations

16-18

4.

Irrigation requirement (delta of irrigation water)

710 mm`

5.

Water use efficiency

22 kg dry matter/ha/mm

On the basis of soil type and normal climatic condition the following irrigation schedules recommended in different seasons and soils

Season

Soil type

Clay and clay loan soil

Loam soil

October to February

14-16 days interval

12-14 days interval

March to April

10-12 days interval

8-10 days interval

Weed management

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Weed control:

The weed management is one of the vital components of berseem production. The major associated weed of berseem crop is chicory (Chicorium intybus). The nature of this weed is such that it infests from field to seed and vice-versa. The intensity of field infestations could be minimized by treatment with 10% solution of common salt and deep summer ploughing with soil inversion plough after final harvest of the crop.

Disease management

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Disease management:

During the month of December and January when the crop attains luxuriant vegetative growth and cloudy days persist for longer period, the heavy infestation of fungal diseases such as root rot caused by Rhizoctenia soloniand Fusanlum smitactumand stem rot caused by sclerotiniatrifoliorum occur. If crop is cut the fungal growth in patches can easily be seen. As rotten stubbles. It has been observed that the problem is more acute under the following situation:

Field is heavily manured with undecomponsed farm yard manure and/or irrigated with sewage.

Water stagnated creation damp conditions.

Light penetration at the ground is curtailed due to delayed cutting.

Cloudy condition prevails for longer period.

Agronomic approaches to solve this problem include.

Avoiding the growing of berseem crop in the same field year after year and deep ploughing during summer.

Using well rotten manure in proper quantities.

Fertilizing the crop with heavy dose of potassium.

Leveling field properly to avoid water stagnation.

Avoiding too frequent irrigations during cloudy days.

Cutting the crop frequently to expose the ground for adequate light availability.

Harvesting & Threshing

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Forage quality:

Berseem is highly nutritious, succulent and palatable forage for all types of livestock. It stimulates milk production of cows and buffaloes and is popular both for milch and draught animals. Berseem is a good source of crude protein, calcium, phosphorus and ether extract. The green forage of berseem on drymatter basis contains 17-22% CP, 42-49% neutral detergent fibre, 35-38% acid detergent fibre 24-25% cellulose and 7-10% hemicellulose.

Yield

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Cutting management and Forage yield:

Forge yield potential of berseem crop is very high. The crop is capable of producing 1000 to 1200 q/ha of green forage under improved agronomic management practices and favorable weather conditions. Mixing Japan rape or Chines cabbage 2.25 kg seed/ha increases the yield by 20-25 per cent in first cut. The yield may further be increased by introducing early cutting.